The president of the Balearics, Marga Prohens, has sent a letter to Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez in which she expresses her unease with ministry of defence plans to create a storage facility for bombs and missiles at the Son Sant Joan air base.
In the letter, Prohens expresses her "surprise" at having learned about the project through the media and about plans "for the construction of a warehouse for bombs, explosives, and nuclear weapons for the Air Force". With this request for information from Sánchez, Prohens adds to complaints about the project from the regional government's spokesperson, Antoni Costa, and political parties such as Més.
While stressing her "absolute understanding of the needs of the Air Force and our country in matters of defence, especially in the current context that requires guaranteeing the security of our citizens against external threats", Prohens regrets that "the planning of this facility, whose necessity and appropriateness I do not intend to question, proceeded without contacting or informing my government, the Council of Mallorca, or Palma Town Hall beforehand".
Accepting that it is a "critical and sensitive facility" and "undoubtedly, a matter of state", she nevertheless insists that regional authorities should have been informed "first-hand in order to be aware of its implications, especially with regard to security guarantees and actions planned in emergency situations, and not to have learned about it through the media".
Prohens concludes: "I trust that we will receive first-hand information about this military facility from the government, and specifically from the ministry of defence, as soon as possible."
Work on the missiles depot, part of which will be underground, is due to be completed next summer. Air Force operations at Son Sant Joan are currently for search and rescue and maritime surveillance. Palma Airport (Son Sant Joan) was a military base before operating commercial flights; the base is clearly separate to the commercial operations but is on the same site.